Men and Women as Friends – When One is Gay or Lbian | Psychology Today

Contents:

• WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN AND GAY MEN MAKE THE BT OF FRIENDS
• I’M THAT GAY GUY WH ALL FEMALE IENDS
• CALL ME BY MY PRONOUNS: WHY GAY MEN CALL EACH OTHER "GIRL"
• I WAS SURE I WAS GAY – UNTIL I FELL LOVE WH MY BT FEMALE IEND
• WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN AND GAY MEN ARE OFTEN SO CLOSE
• HOW TO TELL IF YOUR GUY FRIEND IS GAY
• WHY DO WOMEN PREFER GAY MEN AS FRIENDS?
• ARE STRAIGHT WOMEN AND GAY MEN “NATURAL ALLI”? AN EVOLUTNARY ACUNT
• MEN AND WOMEN AS FRIENDS – WHEN ONE IS GAY OR LBIAN
• HOW TO GET A GAY MALE FRIEND (FOR GIRLS)
• I’M A STRAIGHT WOMAN WHO MARRIED A GAY MAN
• I INTIFIED AS A GAY MAN, THEN I FELL IN LOVE WH MY FEMALE HOEMATE IN LOCKDOWN

WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN AND GAY MEN MAKE THE BT OF FRIENDS

Subsequently, women wh more gay iends feel sexier and more self-nfint about their bodi by parison to women who don't have gay iends. Perhaps unsurprisgly, women say their iendships wh gay people are more hont and secure than those wh straight dividuals, male or female. In other words, is the bond between straight women-gay man iends unique bee they n provi each other hont, unbiased romantic advice?

I’M THAT GAY GUY WH ALL FEMALE IENDS

The thors suggt the possibily that gay men may pete for mat the same way that straight women do wh each other, though they note remas to be studied. In orr to vtigate whether straight women and gay men see each other as the most tstworthy advisers on matters of the heart, the thors vised a clever puter task. Lbians were add as a target bee although they have ltle mon wh gay men, they are also unlikely to give biased love life advice.

Naturally, the straight female target profile picture was different than that of gay and straight mal (the same was ed for both); sexual preference was tailored acrdgly. Straight women perceived the romantic advice of gay men to be signifintly more tstworthy than that of straight men and women, who were equally ls helpful.

CALL ME BY MY PRONOUNS: WHY GAY MEN CALL EACH OTHER "GIRL"

If you're the mood for a lighthearted take on the specialns of the straight woman-gay man iendship, the song “Gay Bt Friend” ptur hilar fashn. There’s some evolutnary explanatn for this: Bee gay men and straight women are not petg for the same mat, and this may be why they excel at dispensg datg advice when I scurry to the bathroom, mid-Tr date, need of a send opn. Unfortunately, though, our teacher scrapped the project last-mute, believg that the ncept was too ak to a romantic realy after our article was nned, my search for a male bt iend — and my ternalized homophobia — prsed on.

The e of she/her pronouns by cisgenr gay men, along wh words such as "girl" or "honey, " is a long-standg and creasgly visible practice.

I WAS SURE I WAS GAY – UNTIL I FELL LOVE WH MY BT FEMALE IEND

For many gay men, g the words wh their iends is a way of embracg femy and showg vulnerabily or affectn to others who share their inti.

Creatg a shared culture — cludg language — around femy n be a way of reclaimg the bas for opprsn many gay men have experienced, as well as disptg the harmful genr few if any lguistic practic are all one thg, all the time.

WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN AND GAY MEN ARE OFTEN SO CLOSE

It may be time to reevaluate cis gay men’s e of words like "she" and "girl" to make sure they align wh ongog efforts to rpect nonbary genr inti, and avoid makg assumptns about people’s pronouns. Lguists, social scientists, and crics have observed and studied cis gay men’s e of “she, ” and their asssments pot to the multiple and often nflictg dimensns of the practice. So for even to make sense for gay men to e ‘she, ’ we have to have some kd of associatn wh ‘she, ’ and ually that associatn is femy, whatever that might mean to or our culture.

It’s not a recent formatn at all, ” explas William Leap, an emer profsor of anthropology at Amerin Universy and pneerg expert on queer men llg each other "she" or "girl" was historilly a way of protectg themselv as well as buildg muny the ntext of homophobic and vlent mastream culture. ”Yet some women have experienced gay men g words like “girl” toward them ways that don’t feel all that different om the misogyny they have experienced om straight men. “I also saw beg negatively ed when whe gay men would say, like, ‘Oh girl, what are you talkg about, ’ and they would be talkg to a woman of lor, pecially a Black woman.

”Consirg misogyny wh gay men’s language practic rais the qutn of how g words like “girl” or “honey” is nnected to their e of other, more ntroversial words that have historilly been ed to mean women, such as “bch” and “cunt. ” Multiple terviewe referenced RuPl’s Drag Race as a show that has popularized the e of words associated wh femy among cis gay men. ”“Gay men are a large group of people wh a lot of different kds of relatnships to genr, and I thk there are absolutely gay men who operate relatn to feme language that really is a reflectn of their male privilege, whether ’s through g ways that nigrate or stereotype women, or whether ’s jt feelg license to e the language how they see f, ” says Zimman, the lguist om UC Santa Barbara.

HOW TO TELL IF YOUR GUY FRIEND IS GAY

Paris Is Burng, the 1990 documentary on Harlem’s drag ball scene, as well as Drag Race, have brought the e of words like "she" and "girl" between Black and Latx drag queens to a wir gay (and straight) dience; today this is somethg employed by gay men of all rac. Wealthy whe gay cis men llg each other "girl" may be drastilly different om Black or Latx gay cis men who ntue to be margalized very different is visible a film like Paris Is Burng, a few s ago there were more shared spac, language, and culture between cis gay men, trans women, and genr-nonnformg dividuals. That kd of rejectn of genr nonnormativy also giv the suatn we fd today, where we have more of a spl between gay men and trans women, for stance, than we might have seen prev s.

“Wh ‘girl/she/her, ’” they say, “if I’m socializg wh cis gay men and that’s what they’re g to scribe each other and to scribe me, there is a ltle b of dissonance there, bee I’m not really sure if they’re g that to validate my genr, or if ’s beg ed as ’s ed wh other cis gay men. We currently have a survey vtigatn unrway that explor some of the posive out of “bromosexual” iendships, cludg our theory that gay men and straight men n be optimal wg men for one another. Gay men – particularly those nservative and ral environments – rema wary about tryg to beiend straight men, fearg prejudice-fueled rejectn.

WHY DO WOMEN PREFER GAY MEN AS FRIENDS?

At the same time, many straight men still doubt that they’ll be able to relate to gay men any meangful way and, for this reason, may not try to iate a iendship. If they’re open-md about beiendg gay men and make the effort to try to fe iendships based upon mon terts, gay men should feel more fortable reciprotg.

Gay men who disclose their sexual orientatn to their straight male iends earlier life may be able to build more open and hont iendships wh them to adulthood. Send, recent rearch has argued that genr and sexual orientatn might not be as black and whe as prevly thought, which opens up new avenu for explorg how gay and straight men n relate to one another.

ARE STRAIGHT WOMEN AND GAY MEN “NATURAL ALLI”? AN EVOLUTNARY ACUNT

If a straight guy and his gay male iend are ls rigid about their masculy and sexualy, they’ll probably be more likely to discs tails about their sexual and romantic liv openly wh one another.

MEN AND WOMEN AS FRIENDS – WHEN ONE IS GAY OR LBIAN

In short, women are able to tst the datg advice om gay male iends bee they know their gay iends don’t have any ulterr motiv: They’re not tryg to hook up wh them or pete wh them for guys. Jt as a gay man might be able to pass on advice about women to his straight iend, a straight man uld nnect his gay male iend wh another sirable gay man, sce neher the gay man nor his straight iend are petg for the same person.

We believe that havg a tstworthy nfidant to help wh romantic pursus is one of the major reasons straight and gay men are leavg the fort of their same-sex, same-orientatn iend groups to form “bromosexual” iendships. Image a scenar where you have a gay man (who has never had sexual terts women) who has all female iends, who know he is gay, and no male iends.

Now a new psychology study has provid evince that gay men and straight women are the perfect iends wh benefs – as long as the benefs have to do wh tstworthy relatnship advice. “I was terted the evolutnary perspective as to why gay men and straight women form close iendships, ” says Eric Rsell, a visg psychology rearcher at the Universy of Texas At and lead thor of the study, published the latt issue of Evolutnary Psychology.

HOW TO GET A GAY MALE FRIEND (FOR GIRLS)

Rsell wonred if had somethg to do wh the exchange of matg advice sce gay men and straight women aren’t romantic partners or matg petn and were “uniquely posned to exchange tstworthy rmatn. ”To tt his hypothis, Rsell enlisted the help of 88 straight women and 58 gay men, all unrgrads om the Texas ChristianUniversy, and nducted two one, straight women were prented wh a scenar volvg a party, a iend who bags out at the last mute and a substute “date” named Jordan. Rearchers asked the women to look up a Facebook profile for Jordan -- who was prented as eher a straight woman, a straight man or a gay man – and then answer a seri of qutns.

In the send study, gay men were prented wh the exact same scenar except the Facebook profile picted Jordan as eher a straight woman, a gay woman or a gay qutns – signed to terme the level of tst tt subjects had for each genr/sexual preference – were ccial to the person’s “game.

As turned out, straight women did tst advice given by the gay Jordan more than the advice they got om a straight female or straight male Jordan.

I’M A STRAIGHT WOMAN WHO MARRIED A GAY MAN

“On average, I would say gay men and straight women probably tst each other around 20 percent more than other dividuals, ” says Rsell. Rsell says he wasn’t surprised by the fdgs, although he did fd tertg that gay men were jt as tstg of straight women as straight women were of gay men.

”It’s a dynamic well-documented movi, lerature and pop culture, says Rsell, potg to famo gay guy-straight gal iendships like Will and Grace and Kurt and Rachel om Glee.

I INTIFIED AS A GAY MAN, THEN I FELL IN LOVE WH MY FEMALE HOEMATE IN LOCKDOWN

There’s even a seri of YouTube vios om the edy group Send Cy showg how a number of famo straight women om lerature – thk Juliet, Lady MacBeth and Charl Dickens’ Miss Havisham – uld have benefed om a “sassy gay iend. Lare was the maid of honor at Fick' weddg, and Fick was Lare's“In general, if you were askg whether I’d tst a straight woman or a gay man an unknown suatn, I’d probably end up tstg the straight woman rather than the gay guy, ” he says.

”Christyne Blount, a 38-year-old fancial analyst om Seattle, says she fely would tst a gay man more than that of a straight man when me to datg advice but feels her straight women iends are every b as reliable. For example, his fay may be vlently homophobic and by cidg that he's gay, you may out him by accint by treatg him different or implyg somethg whout meang to.